HUMR 5131 – L3 – 1
History of Human Rights
• What is «History of»?
• Chronology of Events: from the oldest traces of a
phenomenon to the present form of it (Cf Ishay)
• Archaeology of a Truth: understanding the ‘causes’ of an
event or the ‘growth’ of a phenomen (Cf Hunt)
– Discourse analysis: the ‘truth’ about a phenomenon, as shaped by a
combination of power and knowledge (Foucault)
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 2
History of Human Rights
Cmiel’s review of recent research:
– the rapid growth of HR: agendas & level of activism (political roles)
• expansive and restrictive perspectives on following its spread
– “rights talk”: a history of social justice or a history of human rights?
– its roots in moral philosophy (its intellectual history)
– clusters
• of categories and chronologies (rights generations, linking civil and political)
• of themes (individual—group, sovereignty—globalisation, universalism—relativism)
• of events (phases of implementation)
– histories of particular rights; history of HR in different countries
– 3 sensibilities (perspectives)
• “it’s getting better”
• “paradoxes”
• “very slim results”
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 3
History of Human Rights
Cmiel (continued):
• History of human rights activism
-
1800s: abolitionists, suffragettes, minorities
1940s: birth of UN and UDHR
1970s: democratic rights, entry into force of conventions, HR as ‘last utopia’, birth
of NGOs,
1990s: fusion with development, HR ‘horizon’ of the nation-state and basis of
‘international community’
• Perspectives or ‘sensibilities’:
- There has been a ‘rights revolution’
- HR a paradox: they are as unfulfilled as they are omnipresent
- The history of HR is the history of human brutality: genocide
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 4
History of Human Rights
Ishay, ch 2: Human Rights and the Enlightenment:
The history of European Ascendancy
The history of Modern Europe
The Enlightenment: origins of a liberal worldview and a liberal order
– From revealed knowledge to science and reason: Freedom of religion and opinion
– From feudal authoritarianism to popular sovereignty: expansion of equality and voting
rights (from subjects/vassals to citizens)
– From monopolistic (priviledge-based) economy to mercantilism and capitalism: property
rights, free markets
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 5
History of Human Rights
Ishay, ch 2: Human Rights and the Enlightenment
History of Modern Europe: Westphalian order, result of the assault on King and
Church and technological change (cf: Carpentier: the enlightenment as an explosion in the
cathedral)
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–
–
–
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European expansion: ‘the great discoveries’
English revolution: Constitutional Monarchy
Religious wars, peace of Westphalia (1648): each state its own religion
American revolution: Independent republic
French revolution: Equality, popular sovereignty
Themes that drive the growth of the substance of human rights
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–
–
–
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Abolition of torture and the death penalty
Theories of just war and civilised warfare
Expansion of voting rights/the right to property (not to be confiscated at will)
Alertness to social conditions
Non-discrimination and Women’s rights
Abolition of slavery
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 6
History of Human Rights
Hunt (overview)
• Investigating the intellectual and emotional roots of its present uses
• Definitions: (1) the natural, inalienable, sacred rights of human
beings and (2) the foundation of all government
• Premises: (1) equality and (2) democracy (popular sovereignty)
• How did these axioms become self-evident in «an unlikely place»?
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 7
History of Human Rights
Hunt (overview)
• The anchoring (the naturalisation) of HR is a combination of
emotional and moral-based conviction(she investigating the
logic and the emotional roots of its present uses
• Premises
– the individual self has capacity of moral judgement
– bodily integrity and empathy: seeing others as exemplars of yourself
– capacity to create an ordered community
• The community as a sovereign (a demos)
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 8
History of Human Rights
Hunt (ch 3: a great example)
• discussion of the significance of a statement about:
– the nature of human beings (the Enlightenment)
– transfer of sovereignty (the «Atlantic revolution», beheading the King)
• the tracing of the circulation and popularisation of these
thoughts
• 2 versions of rights language:
– universal, «natural», rights
– rights of «us»; vs. the King, vs. the other
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 9
History of Human Rights
Hunt (ch 3: a great example)
• the inclusion of the other:
– propertyless («men without property have no judgement of their
own»)
– protestants
– negroes and jews
– slaves
– women («no end of it»)
HUMR 5131 – L3 – 10
History of Human Rights
(from Hunt)
• «... the rights of men follow only from the fact
that they are feeling beings, capable of
acquiring moral ideas and reasoning about
these ideas.»
(Marquis de Condorcet, «On the Admission of Women to the Rights of
Citizenship», july 1790.)